Krakatau: Volcanic Island of Indonesia

Often called by its Portuguese name Krakatoa, Krakatau is a volcanic island in Indonesia
located in Sunda Strait in the middle of Sumatra and Java. Krakatau
Indonesia administratively belongs to the province of Lampung, and has
been famous in history since the sixteenth century.

Anciently, it was projected to have had a height
of two-thousand meters and a nine-kilometer radius but after the
pre-historic great eruption in 416, probably forming the
seven-kilometer-wide caldera, as well as its ancestral volcanic
remnants being preserved in Lang Islands and Verlaten. Afterwards,
three volcanoes were formed namely Danan, Perbuwatan, and Rakata,
uniting to form the pre-1883 Krakatau Island.

Krakatau is the name used for the group of islands, including Rakata,
which is the main island, and the Krakatau Volcano as whole. Krakatau
Indonesia has suffered repeated and massive eruptions that have had
disastrous results all throughout history. The second biggest known
eruption happened on the 26th and 27th of August 1883, culminated
through a series of enormous explosions.

The 1883 volcanic eruption of Krakatau Indonesia ejected over
twenty-five cubic kilometers of ash, pumice, and rock, as well as
generating the loudest noise ever reported in history; the cataclysmic
bang was markedly heard as far as Perth in Australia, and an
island near Mauritius called Rodrigues. The caldera collapsed
destroying Perbuwatan and Danan volcanoes and leaving only a relic of
Rakata Volcano; it also claimed the lives of over thirty-six-thousand
people, the majority of fatalities an outcome of the devastating
tsunamis which swept neighboring coastlines of java and Sumatra.

Before the eruption in 1883, Krakatau was made up of three main
islands, namely Verlaten now called Sertung, Lang now called Rakata or
Panjang, and Krakatau itself. Due to the massive amount of material
deposit by the volcanic eruption, the surrounding floor of the ocean
was considerably altered, largely filling the thirty to forty-meter
deep basin around Krakatau with ignimbrite. Lang and Verlaten's land
masses were also increased, and volcanic ash has become a great part of
the islands' geological composition.

After resting for forty-four years, on December 1927, another volcanic
island appeared and was named Anak Krakatau (child of Krakatau). Today,
Krakatau Indonesia continues to be disturbed with occasional
earthquakes, including eruptive episodes that started in 1994 and
reports of Anak Krakatau having an increased volcanic activity that had
flows of fresh lava which added to the area of the island in 2005.

The islands of Krakatau Indonesia still continues to be a main
case study of founder populations and island biogeography, as well as
being carefully watched to prevent future devastating and life-claiming
disasters.